A major interview in MK (Moskovsky Komsomolets, a Russian newspaper) with a wonderfully hellish clickbait headline: Alexei Navalny: “It’s stupid to end up in a cell if you don’t have slippers and sweatpants”
Alexei Navalny, leader of the non-systemic opposition, darling of Bolotnaya Square (the site of major anti-government protests in Moscow), and anti-corruption campaigner, is preparing to spend his last hours as a free man. On Thursday, in the city of Kirov, the verdict will be announced in the most high-profile political case of recent years — the Kirovles case. The opposition politician is accused of embezzling state property; prosecutors are seeking a six-year prison sentence in a penal colony and asking that he be taken into custody in the courtroom. Almost no one doubts that the verdict will be guilty. On the eve of his departure for Kirov, Alexei Navalny told MK how he prepared for prison life, why someone on the verge of arrest would run for mayor of Moscow, and what he thinks of the nickname “Lyosha Eight Percent.” — Alexei, contrary to many people’s expectations, your registration as a mayoral candidate was successful. But isn’t it morally questionable to take signatures from United Russia, the very party you yourself branded “the party of crooks and thieves”? — We took what rightfully belonged to us. When City Hall realized that, because of public pressure, almost no one would recognize an election in which I wasn’t registered, they demolished their own municipal filter. — I read on one United Russia member’s blog, regarding your registration as a candidate for mayor of Moscow, that now that they’ve let Navalny register, he “won’t be tearing our throats out anymore — he’ll be eating sunflower seeds from our hand.” — So far it’s turned out exactly the opposite: I brought them sunflower seeds, they pecked at them, and gratefully brought me their signatures. We forced them to let me into the election with the help of their own United Russia people, and in that sense I did a pretty good job of going for their throat. — New polling says that Moscow’s protest potential is apparently much lower than in the regions. Is this really the right arena for you to test yourself? — This isn’t an arena where I’m testing myself; it’s the city where I live and where I do what I’m supposed to do. Even if some poll showed that out of 15 million people I was the only one who thought corruption had to be fought, I’d still do it. Yes, Moscow is the richest city in the country, and social problems are more visible in small towns — as is happening now in Pugachyov (a town in Saratov Region that saw unrest in 2013). And I wouldn’t say social tension is lower in Moscow; it’s just that in small towns it has become even greater. People got nothing. Three trillion dollars’ worth of natural resources has been sucked out of the ground and sold to the West over the past 15 years! In Moscow, at least, you can see some traces of it in officials’ Mercedes cars or in new buildings. But in the town of Pugachyov, it’s not visible at all. Full text here: http://www.mk.ru/politics/interview/2013/07/16/884555-aleksey-navalnyiy-glupo-okazatsya-v-kamere-esli-u-tebya-net-tapok-i-sportivnyih-shtanov.html Whenever people call me the "darling of Bolotnaya Square", for some reason I always picture myself like this: